MVN - Most Valuable Network

More Post-Game 6 - Still Revelling

Looking back at the Eastern Conference Finals victory over Detroit, we can be thankful that the Celtics did numerous things right:

• They closed out a series early, on the road, finishing the game with authority
• They had a 4th quarter comeback leading to the victory - this happened after the Pistons went on a run in the 4th to increase the lead by 10, the Pistons were playing stifling defense, and the refs were not being kind, and bears repeating, ON THE ROAD
• Ray Allen was Ray Allen again, making that 2 games in a row that Ray Allen was Ray Allen - at this rate, Ray Allen may assume that he is Ray Allen for the rest of playoffs, which is good news for the Celtics
• Perkins continued to be solid, make a few shots, rebounding and playing solid defense on the dejected Rasheed Wallace 
• Rajon Rondo was shooting the ball and scoring - taking and making the step-back 20-foot jump shot like he did late in the 4th quarter showed great confidence
• Paul Pierce played to win in the 4th quarter
• I’d say that in this game, Doc coached the team the way they needed to be coached. Doc stayed away from the Xs and Os, and just asked his team to stick with the simple stuff to slough off any pressure they were feeling, and focus on the execution.  By golly - it worked.

Doc Post-Game Interview:

Doc Rivers probably was feeling some vindication and calm. My favorite line is where he said “I guess if you were going to go to the finals, I don’t think you could have scripted a better way than the way we are going.” He was referring how the BIG THREE moniker actually turned into a BIG BULLSEYE, especially during the playoffs. 

The silver lining to that cloud was that in hindsight, Doc felt “it was helpful for us to be a target”.   Atlanta, Cleveland and Detroit gave the Celtics their best shot, played their best ball, and you can see that Doc was content to be the last one standing in the Eastern Conference, getting stronger each series.  After all, it was the plan all along, Doc just didn’t let anybody in on the secret plan of packing in 20 games for fun before regrouping and playing serious ball in the Finals.

Sounds good to me. More games, more looks, more chemistry, no problem.  Against the more rested and obviously more talented Detroit team, the Celtics took care of business in short order.  And they did it playing defense-oriented games, per usual, holding the Pistons to an average of 80 points in the victories in Games 1, 3 and 6, and also won it offensively in the Game 5 shoot-out.

Way back when, Doc felt that to get this opportunity to get to the Finals, the Big Three had to forget their past. “Didn’t matter that they were great, didn’t matter what they had done. . . . you have to trust my system. You can’t win on their terms.”

On Ray Allen, Doc said, “Ray had to fight through things - it was fantastic, the players kept trusting him, and great example of hanging in there taking the punches.”

And regarding the reversal of fortune, Doc didn’t think much about it. “I’m doing my job. I think I’ve done the best with teams that I’ve had”. Doc is certainly a practical guy, and you have to love that about him.

Pierce and Garnett Post-Game Interview:

Garnett likes his defense. “We know we can score points . . . but we’ve got to be defensive. The more and more we saw the results [of playing good defense], the more we fell in love with it. It’s our backbone, we’ve got to be connected - all 5 guys.” Pierce said that the team focused on defense “every single day, and never got bored with the process”.

To make sure the unity and defensive conversion took place, Pierce said communication was the most important part. In their business-like approach to the season, they also all arrived to training camp early, which Pierce thought helped accelerate the acclimation process. Garnett added that “Doc added structure and mentoring”  and more importantly, “to make this thing work, we all have to give something up.”

Posey and Ray Allen Post-Game Interview:

About the team coming together, Ray Allen said “we talked about this at the beginning of the year. What everyone had done in the past, was in the past. Starting in Rome . . . we decided to do what we need to do to make this team better.”

Allen said they took any loss during the year hard, and undoubtedly the tough stretch they hit in the playoffs against Atlanta and Cleveland. “We never gave up when teams thought they knew how to beat us. We would win on defensive end sometimes, and on the offensive end other times.”

To make it unaminous, Posey also added that the early start the team got last summer was critical. Everyone got to know each other on and off the court. Posey said that the keys included a “total commitment by everybody. Sticking together and weathering the storm.”

Even a couple of 7-game series appeared to be just a bump in the road, and taking 2 out of 3 finishing of the favored Pistons convinced me that they will be ready for the Lakers. 

And if you haven’t figured it out yet, you coaches out there with lots of new bodies need to get your team to camp early!  It’s the secret to this great Celtics season.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 8:05 pm and is filed under Celtics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.